IT'S A MESS! / JUNE 2022 / EMMA'S ALLOTMENT DIARIES

Good morning everyone, welcome back to my allotment diaries. My name is Emma, these are my allotment diaries, I would love for you to follow along. I've got some other ways that you can follow me down below including my blog, my newsletter and my Facebook page and my Instagram as well, so come and follow me along if you want to basically, that's what I've got to say. In this video I'm going to be sharing with you the truth about my allotment plot. In my defence before we go into it, I have been on holiday for one week and when I got back at the end of last week, I spent a lot of time dithering about not doing very much actual work at the plot. Now I am facing the consequences of those actions because the plot is looking very overgrown and horrendous. As a YouTuber, YouTube's about allotment plots and Instagram's about it too, and my whole career is around gardening and allotments, it is actually quite shocking the state my allotment plot is in, but no more, after today my plot will be beautiful. So I'm going to show you on a little tour, take you on a little tour around the plot and show you the state of it basically, because I'm sure that you will agree it is looking more than a little bit overgrown right now, particularly some of these beds which just have nothing in them except weeds. This is actually a blueberry bush, how can you tell? I don't know, look at the weeds everywhere, absolutely everywhere. If your plot is looking a little bit like this or worse or even better than mine, well done, don't despair, don't worry, this is what happens to me every single year and I get in a complete flap and a panic about it. I do always manage to bring it back round because it's that important to me and I just find the determination to fix it, which is hopefully what I'm going to find today, but for instance look at this bed here as an example, it's just, I've just allowed it to fill up with weeds and I don't know what's going in here yet, usually it's sweet corn, I don't know if it's germinating this year, so it's just the bed has just been left and neglected, so there's a lot of work to do. It's not too late if your plot is in this state and I'm going to show you how I'm going to basically turn it around and I am going to turn it around because I'm absolutely determined and it will take hard work and determination but I've got loads of that, so let's get on with it. Well I've been at it for about an hour and a half now, looks so much better, I mainly focused on the beds first and tried to get them sort of clearer and then I started to do around the sides of the plot as well and try and keep it a little bit under control, there's still a lot to go, but I need to have a break now, I'm so tired. I've kept, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pick this up and show you, spiky, I've kept some of these brambles because they're really good for putting around plants to stop slugs and snails, so I've got lots of these that I'm keeping basically, I didn't realise I still had them growing around the sides of the plot and they'll make a little slug and snail defence which is excellent because it's free, always good for a freebie. Looking so much better, so much happier with it, but like I said a lot to go, I think what I'm going to do is start filling up some of the beds, now I cheated, what can I say, I cheated. We drove past a little nursery yesterday, like a garden nursery and they were selling all these lovely plants, so I just picked some up, so I've got some lavender, I've got this which I don't know how to pronounce, a brachyscoma, it sounds like a dinosaur, but it looks quite good for pollinators, got some marigolds, some lettuce, some onions which have already been done, more marigolds over there and I've got some bits and bobs, so this one here is a cucumber, crystal lemon cucumber, looks quite exciting, lots of brassicas, I've got some brussel sprouts, I think I've got some broccoli too, did I get, no cauliflower, went for some cauliflower, the Romanesco one, some more salad leaves here and these are, what are these, pak choy, got some pak choy too and another one of these which is, what's this one called, a felicia, there we go, so I just went to the garden centre and picked up some plants, just a lot of my seeds at home have died and it's okay to do this, you know, there's no rules that says you can't buy plug plants for your allotment plot, you don't have to sow everything by seed, just so you know, don't feel bad about it, I don't, because I want stuff growing and this stuff looks good, so there we go, I will have to protect it all, what I'm going to do is start sorting out some of the beds and getting some of this stuff in I think, it's really heavy, if you didn't cotton on, I wasn't really going to buy any more compost this year, I have brought quite a bit of compost already and for my pots at home as well, my little courtyard garden, so it's been quite expensive year for compost, but I just want everything to grow and it's my plot and I think it will benefit from a new bag of compost, so I haven't quite mastered the art of making my own yet, but that will be a job for next year I think, or I'll be broke and living in a box, so either way you'll find out next year, exciting times, what an idiot, I've got all that in my shoe, we're going to stick out the brussel sprouts, the cauliflower and then I'm going to plant the onions and a couple of rows in between, in the hope that that keeps the slugs and snows away, because they don't like the smell of onion, we're going to try everything for this bed, obviously I'm going to protect it in other ways too, I'm not that silly, but yeah that's what we're going to do, right so that's the pesky slugs and snows taken care of, now it's time to sort out the pesky birds, so I brought this netting from B&Q this morning and I'm going to just net the whole thing and hopefully that'll just keep the pesky birds off, can you see that all right, can you see what I'm doing, yeah good, it's never as blooming easy if you want it to be this stuff is it, I thought I could just throw a great big net over it but no, it comes in small pieces so I've got to cut it all, why is it never easy? Right this is not perfect protection because firstly it don't look right, and if it don't look right normally it's not right, but it's a bit low, the thing is, is those things that you buy, the netting things that you buy, the big frames are so expensive and I've got loads of sticks and netting is only a couple of quid, so it's a bit low, I think they might be able to fly like under there, it depends how daring they are, but I think on the whole this is quite good protection, I'll try to keep it quite tight and also the blueberry bush is actually under it, so I might get some blueberries this year, so it's what we've done, what we've done is what we've done, and that's it now, we can just hope and just hope that they live and they want to live as well, sometimes plants actually want to live, like have to want to live, to live, strawberry bed's looking so much better, I can actually see a couple of strawberries in here, that I can see hundreds of strawberries, but one, one or two that are red down there, let's have a look because I'm starving, I don't bring any lunch with me because I'm silly, oh look there's one, yeah he's not quite ready yet, but definitely looking, looking good, there's another one, oh look he's been eating, he's been eating straight away, didn't get a chance with him, this one here, no he's been eating, it's going to be a running theme here I think, this one here, he's not ready yet, still I think if I'm lucky I might get a few this year but it's looking so much better, I'm knackered and I need to eat something, I need to go home and eat lunch and I've got so much more to do here, you know when you just don't want to leave because you've just got so much more stuff to do, I'd come back but I'd have to pick the kids up from school so there's no point, I'll have to come back tomorrow morning and finish it I think, it's really frustrating me because I really just want to stay till like 10 o'clock at night and just finish, you know what I'm just looking around like my broad bean plants have just started to fall over for no reason, for no apparent reason other than they're just tired, just tired of life, had enough, completely had enough, anyway there's so much to do that I just, there's no point me staying because I'll just knacker myself out, I'd rather come back tomorrow, the one last thing I'm going to do is pull up my onions and garlic because I really do think they're ready now and I'm going to leave them on this soil here to dry out in the sun, hopefully we'll actually have some that look quite good, so I'm quite excited about this because I've never ever managed to harvest garlic and onion before, not that I'm going to now because we don't know, we don't know what what lies underneath so let's find out I think I got one, I think I got one, that, that's good, that looks good that one looks good right, oh no, what's that, what's all that stuff on it he looks all right other than that stuff on him, what's that a bit rotted, all right he might be all right, might be all right, we'll find out, we'll find out, we'll find out he's all right, he's okay, he's all right, a few bugs on him but you know still eat it, that time they've been growing I'll bloody eat anything right now oh yeah, he's a good one, right I am quite pleased with this little harvest actually, I think a lot of these are actually going to be all right you know when they harden up, this is what people do, I've seen them do on Instagram, they leave them lying on the bed like that to dry out in the sun so I'm going to do that because I'm going to come back tomorrow anyway, it's going to be a warm week so I'm going to leave them, I'm going to leave them to lie like that because I think they look like I know what I'm doing, that looks quite impressive doesn't it I'm happy with that, right let's move on to the garlic now I'm not holding out as much hope for the garlic because I just don't oh that's a good one, it's little but it's good it's an onion, most of them look like this they've got like this white stuff on, that means that it's gone rotted rotted or something, this one hasn't got it, this one looks good but it's so bleeding tiny, it's teeny tiny garlic but it's my teeny tiny garlic so I'm happy with him but the rest have got like this stuff on, I don't know if that means it's rotted I don't know what it means, yeah it looks like it's rotted smells like garlic so I've grown something that vaguely resembles garlic which is a half success I'd say and I've got a teeny tiny one that looks possibly edible, possibly edible we'll take that today I think, I think that's a success, this looks really impressive now though if I leave this like this and people walk past they'll think I know what I'm doing here, look at this, it really looks like I know what I'm they won't see it's all rotted and covered in insects that looks fantastic doesn't it, chuffed with that so I've just added an extra layer of protection to my pumpkins which are still alive, they're still alive I've just put some more strokes around them and a few more little natural slug pellets and stuff like that, the netting seems to be working as well it may have been the birds that were eating them not the slugs and snails, not that I'm about to apologize for any slugs or snails around here because they do a fair bit of damage themselves so I'm not apologizing but it may have been the birds the whole time just don't tell them that, but yeah I hope you enjoyed today's vlog it's amazing how just a couple of hours work on the allotment and just getting things the weeds down and everything could just really change your perspective on it I feel really positive about it now, I felt really negative over the weekend and I'm really excited just to keep going so I'll be back tomorrow morning and I'll just keep keep plodding along keep trying to make sense of it all and make some kind of structure out of this complete chaos and see what happens to my onions and garlic I hope you enjoyed the vlog if you did do subscribe to my channel and good luck with your pots don't get too disheartened if they are looking a little bit of a weedy mess because that it just happens every year that it's just life, keep going, keep trying, keep spending time here because even if nothing grows at least you've been outdoors all year most of the year and you've been out in nature and enjoying it all so good luck and I'll see you next time thanks for watching, bye!